


Her Name

by Rubyleaf



Category: Shadow of the Fox Series - Julie Kagawa
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cryptic Dreams, Epilogue Spoilers, F/M, Gap Filler, Gen, Kage Tatsumi actually has some friends now, M/M, MORE takes on "friendships we were robbed of", Memory Loss, Reincarnation, Reunions, Second Chances, everybody gets their happy ending OR SO HELP ME, the others except Tatsumi all have new names but you'll recognize them I promise, you can't prove the gang (excluding Yumeko) didn't reunite at some point okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25572523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubyleaf/pseuds/Rubyleaf
Summary: Kage Tatsumi, Kage Haruko's second grandson, has been haunted by strange dreams since he was a little boy. But it's not until he runs into a few strangely familiar people that they begin to make more sense.
Relationships: Hino Okame/Taiyo Daisuke, Kage Tatsumi & Hino Okame & Reika & Taiyo Daisuke, Kage Tatsumi/Yumeko
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	Her Name

I have always been searching for something, for someone.

I don’t know what it is. I have a feeling that I should know, should remember, but I can never piece together more than the whisper in my heart, the sense of urgency pulsing through my veins. Sometimes I think I am this close to understanding. And then, at the last second, it slips from my grasp.

All I know is that, whatever it is, I will find it. I must.

After all, I know someone out there is waiting for me to make it.

—

They named me Tatsumi, like the hero who slayed the usurping fox in the Night of the Dragon.

It was, they tell me, my father’s idea. I have never met my father; he fell in battle against the Hino shortly before my birth, but my grandmother says he always liked the story of the brave young shinobi who slayed a god alone. My mother originally wasn’t too fond of the name, worrying it would bring me bad luck—the original Tatsumi was possessed by an oni, they say, and became half a demon—but after my father’s passing she agreed to it to honor his wish and his memory.

As for me, I have mixed feelings about the name. On one hand, it feels right—feels like _me_ , more like me than anything else about me, including my face. On the other hand, it reminds me of a story they won’t let me hear in full detail until they decide I’m old enough, and I want to know, desperately want to know. Something tells me I should know already. Something tells me that, in some way or another, I was there too once.

The dreams start when I’m barely old enough to remember my own name and station. They are blurry; flickering; confusing. I can see the Harbinger, ancient and raging and huge as a tsunami wave. Then a sword in my hand, glowing purple with a presence I don’t understand. Then, suddenly, I’m flying through the air on a giant leaf, another presence beside me, but when I try to focus on it it seems to vanish.

My mother and brother exchange a confused glance when I tell them about the dream the next morning. “It was so scary,” I conclude, huddling up in my yukata even though it’s a warm summer day. “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know!” Kousuke declares with absolute confidence, his eyes wide and shining. “But it sounds awesome! Why don’t I ever get dreams like that?”

Smiling, my mother reaches over and ruffles my hair. “It doesn’t mean anything, my dear,” she said. “The story about the Harbinger just got to you. It’s your overactive imagination, nothing more.”

I try to tell myself it’s true, but the dreams keep coming. Each feels realer than the last one, but none of them show me what I most want to know: the face of the person steering the giant leaf. I try to ask my mother, then my grandmother. They all tell me the same thing: that it’s only my fascination with the legend paired with the imagination of a child, and it should go away sooner or later.

But while it’s true that I don’t always have these dreams, and they sometimes become less frequent, they never truly go away.

—

I am out with my brother, learning to fight with a sword, when I first see a shrine with foxes instead of komainu guarding the entrance.

“Big brother,” I say, tugging at his sleeve, “what is this shrine?”

Kousuke pauses, following my pointed finger. He is thirteen now, growing taller every month, and I’ll be seven in a few weeks. “That’s an Inari-sama shrine,” he answers, sounding surprised by my question. “It’s a shrine to the Kami of foxes.”

I let out a gasp. “Wasn’t he killed?”

Kousuke snorts. “You’re thinking of Seigetsu,” he says. “He became a god for a few moments, but he wasn’t the Kami of foxes, just a regular kitsune who got too powerful. The true Kami of foxes is O-Inari-sama.”

_Kitsune…_

The fox statues look down at me, weathered and motionless, their stone eyes staring at nothing in particular. Something about them feels familiar, painfully familiar. I can almost picture the real, living thing: smooth red fur and golden eyes, black-tipped ears twitching attentively in my direction. I have never seen a fox in the flesh, and yet…I can almost feel the softness of their fur under my palm, like I have touched one before, like I have—

“Tatsumi?”

I snap out of my thoughts. Looking around, I find that I have wandered halfway into the shrine.

“Where are you going?” Kousuke asks. “We’re supposed to be headed that way.”

I say nothing and shake it off. But even as I follow my brother down the street, I can’t help looking over my shoulder at the kitsune statues until they vanish from sight.

—

The war with the Hino ended soon after my birth, but when I am twelve or thirteen, the situation tenses up again.

To smooth out the waves, my grandmother, the daimyo, goes to visit the Hino daimyo at his castle. She uses the opportunity to bring Kousuke and me along: to teach us about politics, she says. Mostly, I suspect, she’ll be teaching Kousuke. He’s the one who will be daimyo one day, and I’m only the backup.

Hino Masayuki is a gentle man, less belligerent than his late father who we were at war with when I was born. He seems just as unhappy with the border troubles as my grandmother is, and he greets us all with kindness. But after a warm welcome, I’m quickly left to my own devices. Just as I guessed, the adults think I’m too young to participate in diplomacy yet.

After being shown my quarters, I roam around the castle. It feels completely unfamiliar. The thought has never occurred to me before, but at home I never had to learn how to navigate the building; from the earliest childhood I’ve known Hakumei Castle like the back of my hand, almost as if I had lived there before. But the Hino castle is new to me, truly unfamiliar in a way nothing else has ever been, and I don’t know what to make of it.

As usual whenever my thoughts get too heavy, I seek solitude. There are a few large trees behind the castle, looking out on fields and the forest beyond. It’s quiet here, the noise of the city muffled and distant. My only company are a few birds.

No foxes, I think, disappointed without any logical reason.

Looking around, I make sure that no one can stop me or scold me, then I start climbing one of the trees. It’s something that has always come easily for me; for some reason my head feels clearer up high where I’m by myself and can see further and wider than I normally should.

“There he is! Oi, Kage-san!”

_That voice…_

A memory stirs, but before I can grasp it it’s gone once more. Footsteps rustle through the grass, and moments later a figure comes to stand at the roots of my tree.

It’s a boy, I note, about sixteen or seventeen—closer in age to my brother than me, but not quite an adult yet. He’s dressed in clean but simple clothes, but his ponytail is messy, strands of hair falling untamed into his narrow face, reddish brown like it sometimes shows up among the Hino. His face is familiar, and yet not. I feel like I’ve seen him before—spoken to him before, even though I have never come close to Fire Clan territory before.

“Kage-san,” he says, huffing and puffing from the sprint, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Couldn’t you have told someone you were planning to hide in one of the trees?”

I bow my head. “I’m sorry,” I say, remembering my manners. “I was looking for some solitude. I didn’t know someone was looking for me.”

“So stiff. As expected from the daimyo’s grandson.” Grabbing a branch, the boy expertly begins to pull himself up. “No one’s looking for you,” he adds. “They just assigned me to keep you company, so I figured I’d introduce myself. Look after the child, Natsume, they said. You’re so good with kids.” He snorts. “I’d bet my last copper kaeru they just wanted to keep me away from the grownups before I piss off the wrong person and accidentally start a war.”

He’s…so informal, I think. My family would never suffer me to talk to a stranger like that, let alone someone who is presumably far above my station. All the same, I find that it doesn’t bother me. Part of me has always felt like I don’t belong with the nobility.

“Who are you?” I ask.

Sitting down on the branch next to mine, the boy grins. “Right, I should introduce myself,” he says sheepishly. “I’m Hino Natsume. Officially I’m a samurai, but I’m more of an errand boy these days.”

_Natsume_. The face I remember had another name tied to it, a similar name. What was it? I can’t remember.

“My name is Kage Tatsumi,” I introduce myself, just like I’ve been taught. “Second grandson of Kage Haruko, the Shadow Clan daimyo.”

“Tatsumi, eh? Can’t believe the Kage named a noble after a lowly shinobi.” Natsume dangles his legs. “Still, at least your clan had a warrior in that battle. All we got was some useless ronin dog.”

The phrase feels familiar, so familiar that, just for a second, the boy’s other name lies on the tip of my tongue. “He was a hero too,” I reply, not realizing what I’m saying until after I’ve spoken.

Hino Natsume stares at me like he has seen a ghost, then he bursts out laughing. “Don’t force yourself, Kage-san,” he says. “He was a coward who ran away from his friends and family. He was dead to our clan, but now that he fought against Genno and helped defeat an oni he’s suddenly one of our heroes again. If it were up to me, I’d have let him stay dead.”

I furrow my brow. “Why?” I ask.

“It’s hypocritical. If you mess up you’re not part of the clan anymore, but do something great and you’ve always been one of us. Not that it helped the old guy,” Natsume adds with a shrug and a wry smirk. “At that point in time he was pretty busy being dead.”

_Fought against Genno…Genno…an oni…_

A wounded ronin, nocking an arrow to his bowstring. A demon, a smirk, a gruff voice telling me to go on…go on with…with…

_Who was it again?_

The memory slips. I blink, and suddenly I’m back in the present. Hino Natsume is still sitting across from me, a lopsided smirk on his face that now feels more familiar than anything I’ve ever seen, even at home—so painfully familiar that even the faces of my mother and brother pale in comparison.

Is it a coincidence? Or is this my soul recognizing a companion, an old friend? I can’t say. If Natsume feels the same strange sensation, he isn’t letting it show.

“What do you know about the Night of the Dragon?” I ask him, wondering if that will get any explanations out of him.

But Natsume only shrugs. “The same thing as everyone else, I guess,” he replies. “There’s a million versions of the story by now, anyway. Everyone tries to make their clan look as good as possible.”

Before I can process his response, Natsume brushes it off and starts climbing off his branch. “But let’s talk about something more interesting,” he says, and the strange sensation fades. “You like climbing trees, huh? I think I know the best place for that.”

—

A shadow creeps through my dreams, pitch-black and so enormous I can’t seem to see the end. Heavy footsteps shake the ground with each stride, hands large as boulders carrying an enormous sword that glows a cold, ghostly purple.

_What are you doing, Tatsumi?_

I want to respond, but my tongue is tied. Some part of my soul resonates with the deep, rumbling voice. It feels like being reunited with a very old friend, except there’s an underlying terror that I cannot seem to shake.

_Is this what happened to the kid who wielded the Godslayer?_ The voice scoffs. _Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I could invade your soul so easily now, you know._

The shadow bends down, down, down. Then suddenly I’m looking at a white-fanged face with brightly glowing yellow eyes.

Without knowing what I’m doing, I reach out my hand.

And wake up.

Some part of me has just fallen into place, but I have no idea how to put it into words.

—

Under Hino Masayuki, the relationship between the Shadow and Fire Clans improves drastically. Sometimes we visit the Hino, and sometimes they visit us; and each time I spend as much time with Natsume as I can. Little by little the memories with the actual person begin to overlay the strange sensation, but the familiarity never fades. Hino Natsume is my friend, but he also feels like a part of the past I have lost, a key to the memory I’ve been looking for all my life.

When I’m sixteen years old, we all meet in Kin Heigen Toshi for the first time: my family and I are invited guests, and Natsume is part of the Hino household traveling with Masayuki-sama. I have no trouble navigating the city. Unlike the Hino castle, it doesn’t feel unfamiliar to me, and once again I find myself searching the streets for something I don’t remember.

“This is weird,” Natsume tells me in an undertone as we walk through the streets, sightseeing with no particular goal in mind. “I know I haven’t been here before, but I swear I’ve seen these streets before.”

My heart lurches. For a second all my questions lie right there on the tip of my tongue, and all I need to do is speak them out. Then I decide against it. If my family hasn’t taken them seriously, why should he?

“Me too,” I admit and then pause. “That shrine…”

Natsume follows my gaze and blinks. For a second his eyes glaze over, then he shakes himself. “It’s just a shrine,” he says. “We’ve passed one of those just earlier, so why does this…” He trails off, then stabs a hand through his hair. “Call me crazy, but it feels like home.”

_To him too._

The shrine door opens, and a miko steps outside with a broom to sweep the front porch. Her eyes briefly meet with ours, but there’s no spark of recognition: not in her gaze, and not in my chest.

“Maybe our imagination,” I say, even as another image flickers on and off in my head: a miko with a giant komainu beside her, holding up a paper ofuda. “Let’s keep going.”

—

Neither Natsume nor I have ever seen anyone from the Sun Clan until the night of the Moon Viewing Party.

I don’t like standing in the middle of the crowd. I’m used to it, but somehow my instincts keep whispering to search for the shadows, hide in the dark and observe the scene from a distance. Talking to strangers gets exhausting after some time. I stay polite, but as soon as I find an excuse I slip away from the chatter and find myself in the shadow of a tree with Natsume at my side.

“There you are, Kage-san,” he says. “Good timing. I was just wondering where to get some sake.”

I squirm at the idea of getting drunk; something about losing control of myself feels more dangerous than it probably should. “We shouldn’t drink too much,” I warn him.

“Come on, it’s the Moon Viewing Party! With the best booze you can find in all of Iwagoto!” Natsume loops a playful arm around my shoulders. “You should learn to let loose a little, Kage-san—”

His voice trails off mid-sentence. His eyes grow wider and wider, fixed on some point in the distance, yet not too far away.

Following his gaze, my eyes land on a group of silver-haired Taiyo nobles. At first I don’t understand what it is that he’s seen. And then one of them turns, and it hits me at once.

Natsume staggers back, looking like someone whose very world has been swept from underneath his feet. But before he can collect himself, before he can react, the Taiyo noble leaves his group and strides over to approach us.

“Honored guests,” he says, “I don’t believe I have greeted you before. Allow me to introduce myself.” He bows slightly. “My name is Taiyo Mikoto, may I ask who you are?”

Natsume is still frozen in place, so I take over for him. “My name is Kage Tatsumi, grandson of Kage Haruko,” I say. “This is Hino Natsume of the Fire Clan.”

“Kage-san…Natsume-san.” Taiyo Mikoto pauses, his eyes widening as he realizes his mistake. “No, Hino-san,” he corrects himself. “My apologies. I don’t understand what possessed me.”

“Na…Natsume’s fine.” Little by little my friend returns back to normal. “I’m amazed you apologized at all,” he adds, a smirk spreading over his face. “Even if I got offended, it’s not like I could show it without getting beheaded, right?”

Mikoto cracks a smile. “Perhaps you could,” he says, “if I stood up for you.”

Snorting, Natsume crosses his arms, his face suspiciously red even in the dim light of the moon and lanterns. “A golden Taiyo, sticking up for one of us puny mortals?” he shoots back. “What is the world coming to?”

“Better days, hopefully.” Mikoto’s smile doesn’t waver, though his eyes darken. “Although,” he continues, the dark look disappearing, “I’m not particularly high in rank. I would say Kage-san here outranks both of us.”

I look down along myself, suddenly realizing he may well be right. The thought feels wrong. I regularly forget I’m a noble at all, no matter how well I know that I’m the daimyo’s grandson. Outranking a Taiyo shouldn’t feel this strange—there are plenty of minor nobles among them too—but for some reason it feels wrong to outrank this particular one.

“Does he?” Natsume remarks at my side, clearly just as puzzled by the concept. “Right, I keep forgetting he’s second in line for a daimyo position! You should step up your game, Kage-san,” he adds, smirking. “If you don’t start acting like a stuck-up princeling soon, people might actually like you.”

Mikoto laughs softly, and Natsume turns bright red all over again. I search for an excuse to leave them alone. The way they’re looking at each other is obvious: the same way my brother looked at his now-fiancée when he first saw her, except much more intensely. But as I start to back away, Natsume’s gaze catches my own, urgently and desperately begging me to stay.

The moon rises higher and higher in the sky. Everything about this image feels familiar: the full moon, the lanterns, the lush gardens and the glimmering palace beyond. Two young men at my side, a Hino and a Taiyo, who both feel like old friends even though I’ve only known one of them for a few moments.

In the crowd, a glimpse of red onmyoji robes flashes between the samurai and nobles.

_She’s here!_

My body moves before I can question the thought. Excusing myself from my friends, I throw myself into the crowd and run after the red robes. Dream and reality start overlapping. Onmyoji robes, a voice in my head keeps whispering. _She_ was wearing onmyoji robes the last time we came here.

_The last time? Tatsumi, you’ve never been here._

_And…who is “she”?_

Slowing my steps, I falter, turning right and left in the middle of the crowd. I can’t see my friends anymore. Where my family went, I don’t know. The figures standing around me, shooting me questioning glances, are all complete strangers.

The illusion fades. What have I done? Of course the faceless figure from my dreams wouldn’t randomly show up here…and yet, at the slightest chance, I forgot everything and ran off blindly. Nothing will harm me at the Emperor’s party—but what if this had happened in a more dangerous place? Would I have done the same?

Just as my thoughts start swirling, I glimpse the red robes again. This time I have to know: not because I think I’ve found the person from my dreams, but because I need to see who they belong to. Determined not to let them out of my eyes again, I follow, weaving my way through the crowd until I catch up to a young dark-haired woman who blinks in surprise when her eyes meet mine.

Recognition flashes, but she isn’t who I’m looking for. She feels more like Natsume or Mikoto: familiar like a long-lost friend, even though I know nothing about her.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

Before I can piece together an answer, there’s a patter of footsteps, and moments later Mikoto and Natsume come hurrying up to my side. “Kage-san, what’s gotten into you?” Natsume asks. “You’re not usually the type to just run off without warning!”

“Whatever it was,” Mikoto answers, “it appears he has bumped into Ritsuka-san.”

I look back and forth between them. “You know each other?”

“Have for a few years,” the onmyoji replies bluntly. “I’m training to be an onmyoji in the capital, and he happens to know my master.”

I bow to her, my thoughts swirling frantically in my head. The four of us are together again, my soul keeps whispering: reunited, after what, I can’t remember. And yet, one more is missing. The fifth member of our party, the nameless, faceless girl from my dreams that I now know wore red onmyoji robes.

So far, all of us have found each other again. Natsume and I found each other, and Mikoto and Ritsuka, and now the four of us are all together once more. All that’s missing is _her_. Could there be a chance, however small, that one of them knows who she is? Could there be a chance that she came here tonight like the rest of us?

Should I finally ask?

_It’s just your imagination._

My soul tells me it isn’t. It’s more than that. The problem is that I don’t know what it is, can’t explain it, not even to myself. But who else will listen? Who will understand?

I decide not to mention it for now.

—

My dreams are haunted by red onmyoji robes, similar but not identical to the ones Ritsuka wore at the party.

A girl dances weightlessly in the moonlight, barefoot on the grass, then inside a half-lit room. Then suddenly her robes are dirtied and torn, and a cold wind whips violently at the fabric, cutting off the words she says and tearing them into unintelligible shreds. I can’t remember her voice. I still can’t see her face. The only thing I can remember clearly are the robes, bright red and vibrant in a world full of gray, real and tangible where everything else is a blur of shadows and mist.

Then suddenly she’s kneeling at the foot of a cliff, and I cup her face in her hands and kiss her. There are tears on her cheeks, but I still can’t make out her features. I try to feel for them, but my own hands are transparent, and her cheek simply passes through them like they aren’t there.

I know I say something to her, but after I wake up, the only thing I remember is one single sentence.

_I will find you._

—

Taiyo Mikoto insists on guiding Natsume and me around the city for the rest of our stay, and whenever she can, Ritsuka goes out of her way to join us.

At first, all we do is sightsee. Then, little by little, our explorations go off the rails. The spontaneous fishing trip in the river, while ruining our good clothes and giving us a lot to explain later, is still fairly harmless. The undercover visit to the shady parts of town, largely instigated by Natsume, miraculously ends with none of us stabbed, kidnapped, or even recognized for who we are. The climb to the rooftop of Mikoto’s home turns out to be a little more stupid, but thankfully Ritsuka finds us trapped up there and is able to call for help.

Natsume and Mikoto are growing closer and closer. I don’t think they realize how obvious they’re being; or maybe they don’t care. But I don’t miss the long gazes they share, the way they stand so close their arms brush together, the way Mikoto will look for any excuse to touch Natsume or the way Natsume laughs when talking to Mikoto. Abruptly I find myself wondering about love too. I’ve never been in love; at least, I don’t think I have. Neither women nor men are particularly interesting to me, not in that way. No matter how beautiful the person in front of me, something always seems to be missing.

Maybe, I muse, because they all aren’t _her_.

Two days before our departure, the four of us find ourselves in the garden that belongs to our lodgings, sitting on the grass with the mochi Natsume stole from the pantry. The others talk and talk—though, to be fair, it’s mostly Natsume and Mikoto talking, with the occasional comment from Ritsuka.

“You know what’s missing?” Natsume remarks as the sun begins to set. “A good bottle of sake. Anyone else need a drink?”

“No, thanks,” Ritsuka and I say in unison.

“I suppose I’ll have a drink or two,” Mikoto replies. “However, where are we supposed to get sake?”

Natsume smirks.

“It’s easy,” he says. “All we need to do is break into the pantry again. Anyone coming with me, or do I do the stealing alone?”

“Stealing? Don’t be ridiculous!” Ritsuka jumps to her feet. “Are you asking to get in trouble right at the end of your stay?”

“I’m not joining either,” I say. “And you should be careful.”

“Not? C’mon, Kage-san, it sounds like a fun adventure! What’s the worst that could happen?”

“That’s what you said before we got stuck on the roof.”

“That was one time!”

Chuckling, Mikoto rises to his feet. “I shall accompany you, Natsume-san,” he says. “That way you won’t feel as alone.”

“A Taiyo who helps me steal from the pantry? You’d be disowned if your family knew,” Natsume jokes back. “Are you sure that’s worth it?”

Mikoto waves a dismissive hand. “I can talk my way out of it,” he says. And then, sobering up, he adds, “Besides, your company is worth a little trouble.”

Natsume blushes and mutters something unintelligible. Side by side the two of them disappear into the building.

And stay gone for a very, very, very long time.

“I’m going to check on them,” I say at last, getting up to follow them. “Maybe they got in trouble.”

Striding through our guesthouse, I find my way to the pantry. At the door, I pause. There are muffled voices coming from inside: Natsume’s and Mikoto’s, I find with both confusion and relief. What on earth is taking them so long?

“Your company is truly enjoyable, Natsume-san,” Mikoto is saying as my hand rests lightly against the door. “It’s a shame that you must leave so soon; I shall miss you.”

“Hey, right back at you,” Natsume retorts. “Life will be pretty boring back home without you, Peacock.”

There’s a startled beat of silence, then they both gasp at the same time. “Wait,” Natsume splutters. “I didn’t mean—”

“Natsume-san,” Mikoto interrupts him, his ever-calm voice shaken and agitated, “we have known each other before, haven’t we?”

Another silence. When Natsume replies, his voice is so quiet I barely catch it. “What are you talking about?”

“This may sound ridiculous,” Mikoto continues. “We have known each other for mere weeks, but the first time I saw you, I knew you like I know myself. Tell me, Natsume-san—does your soul not recognize mine the way my soul did yours?”

Natsume sighs. “Of course it does, Peacock,” he admits. “When I first saw you, I felt the same. But I…what am I supposed to do about it? I’m leaving in two days. And you’re a Taiyo, and I’m…” He trails off, and when he continues, he sounds surprised by his own words. “I’m…a samurai,” he says. “I have honor. And if I can be friends with Kage-san, who’s ranking higher than you…”

He falls silent. Sighs again.

“Then you can love me,” Mikoto softly completes the sentence, “can’t you?”

Natsume’s voice comes out raspy. “Mikoto-san…”

Stepping away from the door, I start to turn around and sneak away. On one hand, these two deserve their privacy. On the other hand, I’m still hung up on their words.

They have these feelings too. Their souls recognized each other too. And that means…

That means that maybe, just maybe, they will understand.

Ritsuka gives me a questioning look when I return without the others, and I avoid her gaze as I sit back down. “They’re fine,” I say. “They’ll be back soon.”

She raises her eyebrows into a knowing look. “Ah. Took them long enough.”

When the two finally make their way back to us, both their faces are flushed, even though they’re clearly sober. But they have somehow succeeded at nicking three whole bottles of sake, which they both look almost comically smug about.

As Natsume sets down the bottles, I take a deep breath.

“You three,” I say, “I need to tell you something.”

—

“I see,” Ritsuka says when I conclude my explanation. “So in short, you’re looking for a lover from a past life that you promised to find again.”

My heart skips a beat. “You don’t think it’s my imagination?”

“It sounds too long-running for simple imagination,” Ritsuka retorts. “And you’ve had it consistently since childhood. You don’t seem like the type to follow a simple daydream that far.”

Inside my chest, my soul is leaping and singing. Finally, finally, someone understands. “What else can you make of it?” I ask.

“It all comes back to the Night of the Dragon,” Mikoto muses. “To me it sounds like you fell in the battle there and left your lover behind. Do you have any clues for where to look for her?”

I look down. “The Night of the Dragon,” I say quietly. “The Tsuki Islands…maybe she’s still there. All I know is that she must still be alive.”

I stop in my tracks. Where did that knowledge come from? It was never there before.

“Still?” Ritsuka bursts out. “After almost a century?”

“What is your girlfriend,” Natsume jokes, “a yokai or something?”

I think of the Inari-sama shrine…the fox statues…the familiarity.

“Maybe,” I muse, “she’s kitsune.”

And suddenly I have a lead.

—

The years pass by. I’m more immersed in my responsibilities now, but whenever I can, I search for news of a kitsune who fought in the Night of the Dragon. Information is scarce. There are a few myths of a wandering fox, but they’re all decades old, and that kitsune hasn’t been seen again since. Otherwise, there is no information. My friends help me search however they can, but they can find no helpful hints either.

Then, suddenly, my grandmother receives an invitation to the Tsuki Islands, and I instantly sense my chance.

“We should go,” I urge her over and over. “Who knows when you’ll get another chance to visit Moon Clan territory.”

“Indeed,” she replies. “I haven’t seen the daimyo in a few decades. I’m amazed she’s still ruling.”

I want to ask her what that means, but I leave the matter be. If the Tsuki daimyo has ruled for a while, then maybe she knows the kitsune I’m looking for. Maybe she has the answer to all my questions.

As soon as we’ve been shown our quarters, I excuse myself and hurry out. Out of the palace, through the city, into the streets that have already been decorated for the festival celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the Night of the Dragon. My feet carry me all the way to the cliffs of Ryugake, but she isn’t there. The place holds no answer beyond a familiarity so intense that it almost brings tears to my eyes.

Evening falls. Frustrated, I make my way back to the town. Maybe she’ll be among the people celebrating, I muse. I barely dare to hope.

Endless lanterns float down the river, each bearing the names of those who fell in the battle against Jigoku. I watch them float, wondering if one of them is bearing my name, or those of my friends’ old identities.

And then I see her.

Across the river of light, I spot her, and all the missing pieces finally fall into place. All my dreams, all my blurry memories suddenly make sense. She is here, and my soul recognizes her, and it feels like I’ve never been gone.

I have always been searching for something, for someone.

And now here she is, finally within my reach.

Across the dark water, the floating lanterns, I meet her gaze and smile.

“I’ve finally found you.”


End file.
